BASQUE COUNTRY – SHITTING CLASS HERO

Meet Rambo. He’s also nicknamed Sodom, most probably because he looks a lot like Tom Angelripper from the German thrash band Sodom, but slimmer. Rambo is well known in the Basque Country’s squat scene, he plays bass in grindcore band Iron Batasuna, and has a fondness for something we could place freely between scatophilia, social activism, and… art? When having the urge to empty his bowels, he doesn’t hesitate to do so in the nearest outdoor locale, be it idyllic green forest or the entrance rug to the mansion of a local bigwig. It’s his “thing.”

Rambo’s history reminded us of the legendary Serial Shitter, a secret crusader who perpetrated a series of scat attacks in the mid-80s that consisting of dropping his fresh feces on the dancefloors of the classiest, poshiest clubs and discos in Barcelona, then disappearing without a trace. We wanted to know more about Rambo’s spiritual and ideological implications of his random-but-not-quite defecations, so we made an appointment with him in the very aristocratic, peaceful city of San Sebastián on a bright and sunny afternoon.

Rambo:

And that joyful childhood experiences led to your current habit of emptying your bowels anywhere. Are you in protest or claiming something? Is this art?
No, no. I just do it whenever I feel the need, that’s all. The ideal thing would be composting the turds, but living in a city like this makes it rather complicated to walk around the streets with a spade, digging the gardens.

But we know for sure that you’ve left “inner self presents” to powerful people on several occasions. 

True, though I prefer not to speak at length about this, for safety reasons. Once I did a truly memorable action here in San Sebastián on New Year’s Day. I was on my way home after partying hard all night and decided to walk thru a residential area for high class people instead of going my usual way. “Fuck, theses houses are sooo posh, man,” I thought. Then I remembered that the big boss of the real estate development agency that has ruined half of San Sebastián and expelled the squatters from my neighborhood lived in one of these houses. I found the spot and said to myself, “Welcome!” I then proceed to evacuate a pretty solid turd in front of his door for him to find.
I have another anecdote from when I went to Barcelona to play with my band, Iron Batasuna, along with another group, Destierro. I can’t remember the date, but I do remember the exact place. Let me see, I have it in my notebook… Yeah, here it is: Molins de Rei, Barcelona. 10 Rector Colon Street.

Colon Street, now that’s a fitting name!
Actually I think it was Colón, with the accent in the second “o.” Anyway. I snuck into a big house where I’d seen three cars parked in the garden; a Porsche, a Jaguar, and a Hummer. And I took a dump passionately in front of the entry door. Even rang the doorbell to give the residents a surprise, but it was 3 AM and they probably were sleeping. Fuck, the intention is what matters, isn’t it? Ha ha!

So you admit that there’s a certain spirit of revenge in what you do.
Dude, if this little prank makes a rich motherfuckin’ son of a bitch angry, fine! But I don’t see it as any kind of a struggle; I’m not into any “My shit against the System” ethos. For me it’s something more symbolic. I’m not a caped crusader, nor do I make plans or decide every action beforehand as the “Serial Shitter” did, defecating in the middle of crowded dance floors.

That would be cool, an unknown guy in a leotard spreading scat panic in this, the most snotty of cities. Do you have any kind of signing to claim responsibility for your scat actions? A doodle on the wall, for example, or an ace of spades card…
Usually I piss on top of the turd, shaping it into a bowl.

Nice flourish! Do you keep any special diet?
No. I haven’t eaten meat for a long time, but booze on weekends aside, I don’t keep any kind of diet. Well, actually I ingest lots of fiber to make my bowels work easier.

And what has been the strangest scenario for one of your defecations?
Uh… A hermitage on the top of a mountain. I dumped on the altar. It was freezing cold outside, so…

Tell me more about that log book, the diary in which you keep track of your actions.
I always carry a notebook and a pen so I can put on paper the bullshit sometimes I come up with. I write down nearly everything, ranging from dates of my villainies to reminders like, “Help my flatmate to quit smoking,” or “September 24: go party with Ibón, Mikel, and Beñat.” 

You’re hiding things from us. I’ve also been told that sometimes you compose short poems praising the art and pleasures of shitting in open air.
OK, OK! It’s all true. Here’s the story: once I had an interim job teaching a graphic design program and every Friday I had to attend a meeting here. Try to picture this: all the people with black suits and ties carrying suitcases and laptops, gel in the hair, and reeking of expensive cologne… Except me, of course, who arrived riding a bicycle, most of the times with a severe hangover after being up all night, unshowered and carrying a sleeping bag for the weekend. I arrived and immediately rushed to have some coffee and a quick smoke, basically so I could stay awake. Coffee and cigarettes, and then, obviously, a visit to the men’s room. That’s where I let my creative impulses run free.
On one occasion I went into an amazingly luxurious bathroom, a quite incredible place complete with crystal panels. I could only think about how great it would be to be in the mountains, shitting and watching the mountain range. But there I was, in a fucking crystal palace! So I wrote this little poem I’m gonna read to you:

“Reflections from a Luxury Lavatory”

How rough my asshole feels 
Being watched by a perfumed pond 
With my buttocks on the neat bowl. 

Hardly I perceive the stench of my droppings
I wish not to become part of the background
Of this Bohemian crystal jail. 

How many lumbagoes developed
Perfuming the excrements
And the pissings of the necktied ones
Those labelled by Calvin Klein,
And carried around in convertible cars…

Uh. I’m speechless. Erm… Could you tell us a bit about your private life? Are you studying, working? What do you do in your free time?
We better leave that stuff for the gossip magazines.

Let’s instead talk about your music career. Is it true that Iron Batasuna weren’t allowed to enter Croatia?
Actually we were deported, due to a problem with our merchandising. We had a box full of t-shirts depicting the “bastard txaraina” (a monster resembling Iron Maiden’s mascot, Eddie, wearing the characteristical anti-riot suit of the Ertzainza –the Basque autonomical police–and menacingly raising a blood-stained truncheon). The border authorities were the typical blokes from “the other side”: huge, bad tempered guys with scars and killer glances. Uff! They asked for our passports and rushed to search our luggage at the very moment they found out one of us was a Chilean. Confiscated all our t-shirts, denied us entry by screaming “Get out of my country!”, put a stamp on our passports and, hey! Deported.

Touring with a band must have given you quite a few opportunities to perform your actions, I guess. Countless hours on the road, irregular feeding, wide open spaces…
I have a cute little anecdote from Slovakia. I felt the urge to take a shit but I thought the bar we were in wasn’t worthy of such a present. The differences between classes are very pronounced in Slovakia, you know? Everybody had ramshackle cars, heaps of old scraps from the Soviet times, but there was always the typical bee’s knees guy driving a magnificent Mercedes. I saw at least one luxury car parked in every street. I switched to “search and destroy” mode: my goal was to shit on one of those. Many people were constantly passing by and I wasn’t playing at home, so eventually I had to give up and consider the game lost. Unloaded instead in the entrance hall of a building.

Listen, I have to admit that I still can’t figure out exactly what your game is all about. That childhood image of crapping in the mountain enjoying the fresh air was a good starting point, but now you’re an adult and this obsession of yours seems to me like some kind of morbid coprophilia.
Bullshit. Look, all animals coexist with their excrements. Beetles collect their own turds. Dogs eat them. Pigs roll over shit. Hippos scatter it with their tails. Some primitive cultures still build their shacks with dung, and farmers all around fertilize the fields with manure. And what about us city dwellers? For us it’s a taboo. “Oh, excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom.” It shouldn’t be like that. Fuck! Shitting is a natural act, and the more you interact with the land, the more you learn to have respect for it. Some artists paint expensive pictures not much better than that thing you do in “the bathroom” on a given Sunday morning. I believe that the stress of living in the city has made us lose our respect for the shit, which is an essential part of life.

GORKA ÚBEDA